Phenytoin and Multidose Activated Charcoal

Summary

Phenytoin is a medicine used to treat seizures. If too much is taken, patients have ill effects including sleepiness, unsteady gait, and eye problems. The amount of drug in their system can be measured in their blood. Charcoal is a medicine that can absorb phenytoin. We want to see if giving multiple doses of charcoal will quicken the removal of phenytoin from the blood. This is theorized to occur as charcoal absorbs phenytoin from across the intestines and then is secreted in the stool. Patients will be selected to receive either charcoal in multiple doses or no charcoal and their serum levels will be drawn repeatedly to follow their level. The different groups will then be compared to see if multidose charcoal does indeed increase the elimination of phenytoin from the body.

Timeline

Start

2008-08

Primary completion

2010-07

Completion

2012-01

Publications

• Results Skinner CG, Chang AS, Matthews AS, Reedy SJ, Morgan BW. Randomized controlled study on the use of multiple-dose activated charcoal in patients with supratherapeutic phenytoin levels. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2012 Sep;50(8):764-9. doi: 10.3109/15563650.2012.716159. Epub 2012 Aug 17.

Drugs

Indications